Another star emerges from the magic mile

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On the rise ... Rhys Meirion has his eyes on singing at the great
opera houses of Europe and the United States.Photo: Sahlan Hayes

He grew up near Bryn Terfel in Wales but Rhys Meirion is his own
man, writes Bryce Hallett.

In opera circles in Australia, Geelong and Ballarat have a
reputation for producing fine singers who have forged international
careers, not least Peter Coleman-Wright, Cheryl Barker and David
Hobson. It's said there must be something in Victoria's crisp air
that's conducive to clear diction and lung power.

The same is said of an area in North Wales dubbed "a magic mile"
from where many wonderful Welsh singers hail, including one of the
biggest stars of them all, Bryn Terfel, and a family friend, the
rising tenor Rhys Meirion, who makes his Opera Australia debut this
week playing the poet Rodolfo in La Boheme.

Like Terfel years earlier, Meirion came to notice through the
eisteddfods (the singing competitions), partly goaded into action
by his "speed cop" dad Gwilym who conducted the local choir in
Tremadog in Gwynedd on the side.

"I grew up five miles away from Bryn Terfel," says Meirion after
a dress rehearsal of Puccini's ever-popular opera. "I have known
Bryn since I was 10; my dad taught him to drive." (In a recent
interview in London, Meirion's father said he used to hit Terfel
with a ruler when he reached for the gear stick). No mention is
made of the old man's teaching tactics on this occasion but the
tenor conveys a vivid impression of his close-knit clan and how his
father's moonlighting choir days made him a reliable talent
spotter.

"I saw music as a dream, not as a career," he says. "I became a
head teacher when I was 26 and took the role very responsibly
because I'd only been a teacher for four years. When I married Nia
I wasn't singing professionally and there was not a hint of my
making a go of it in opera ... Life is strange when you think where
I am now, here at the Opera House in Sydney for the first time and
working with fantastic singers."

The turning point from the toil of teaching to the pressured
life of a globetrotting performer came when Meirion injured himself
playing rugby. His dad insisted he find an outlet from his work and
singing it was. In 1996 he won the National Eisteddfod, cheered on
by family and friends who knew he could deliver the goods even
though he wasn't so sure. Even Terfel was taken aback. "My mother
rang to tell him I'd won the blue ribbon and he couldn't believe it
... But Bryn's encouraged me since and it's been a thrill to work
with him." (Both shared the stage in a gala concert at the Royal
Albert Hall and recently recorded a collection of Welsh and English
duets titled Benedictus.)

With dark, penetrating eyes and a polite, easygoing manner, the
performer enthuses about his "roller-coaster ride" and his resolve
to keep a healthy, balanced family life despite the absences from
home. He has three children, aged four, six and nine.

Since making his opera debut at Glyndebourne in 1999, Meirion
has earned accolades for his rich, clear, warm voice and assured
acting. He joined the English National Opera (ENO) in 1999,
initially as a member of its young singers program then as a
principal between 2001 and 2004 when he performed such roles as
Alfredo (La Traviata), Nadir (The Pearl Fishers),
Tamino (The Magic Flute), the Italian singer (Der
Rosenkavalier) and Zinovy in Lady Macbeth of Mtzensk. It
was while appearing in the last that he got a phone call saying his
wife had gone into labour.

"Straight after coming off stage I jumped in my car and headed
north. The trip usually takes about 4 hours but I think I did it in
three. I got to Nia's bedside about 10 minutes into the birth." (No
doubt his speed cop dad would shudder at this).

Cupping his hands around an apple the tenor is fidgety and
attentive. He's an animated storyteller who offers tantalising
morsels about the opera world and some of its more notorious
directors. He tactfully instructs, "don't write that down" or "keep
that for another time". He laughs and I suspect he's still a
teacher at heart.

For the next eight months he'll be part of the Opera Australia
workforce, first La Boheme, then the lead in Romeo et
Juliet in Melbourne in spring, followed in January by his role
debut as Pinkerton in a revival of Moffat Oxenbould's version of
Madame Butterfly at the Opera House. For now he's relishing
the quick-fire emotions of Rodolfo in Simon Phillips's contemporary
version of the tragic young lovers in Paris. He's set La
Boheme's first and final acts in a modern, boldly lit apartment
block that evokes coldness and warmth, decay and renewal and the
instinctive emotions of youth. Minutes before this interview
Meirion is immersed in the motley tribe inspired by Henri Murger's
novel Les Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (Scenes from
Bohemian Life): its gaiety and fragility. The beauty of
Puccini's score and the pain of the seamstress Mimi's demise one
moment, the mundaneness and clutter of the Opera House green room
the next. "When I was at the ENO I was taught how to draw on
emotions that you haven't actually had, to look to your childhood
when they are so vivid and raw, but the important thing is to make
it real and for the audience to feel the emotions. It's a thrilling
thing to have in your voice and your body; it's like electricity
and it's never exactly the same each night."

Meirion likes opera to be magical and accessible, and is not
overly fond of Italian and German operas sung in English. He's also
dead set against amplification. "The excitement of opera is the
sound coming out of the artist's body into the body of the audience
as if from one soul to another."

The singer is making sure and steady progress in his relatively
new calling. He aims to perform at such hallowed houses as London's
Covent Garden and the Metropolitan in New York. Lots of travel
awaits but don't think he's getting homesick just yet, not when his
wife and three children are with him in Sydney. Not only that but a
cheer squad arrives from Wales next month. "There's about 30 coming
on what's been planned as a holiday of a lifetime, and many of them
have never been out of the country ... They have already booked [to
see La Boheme] in September and they're sure to bring the
Welsh flag. I just hope I can do them proud."

I swear he sounds like a rugby player.

Shortly after Meirion leaves our shores early next year he steps
into Pinkerton's shoes again, this time in film director Anthony
Minghella's (Cold Mountain, The Talented Mr Ripley)
debut opera production of Madame Butterfly for the ENO. It
premieres in November but Meirion takes the role in Lithuania when
it's presented by the Lithuanian National Opera, then London when
it returns for a second season at the restored, 3000-seat
Coliseum.

After that? "I am not too sure ... I've set my goals high and I
have plans to audition for those places [Covent Garden, the Met,
etc]. You can't go straight to the top unless you're Bryn Terfel,"
he says with a hearty laugh. And just in case you're wondering, the
acclaimed bass-baritone is, assures his fellow Welshman, "an
excellent driver". The ruler must have paid off.